"E. C. Tubb - Dumarest 19 - The Quillian Sector" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tubb E. C)

it could take as well as give.

"You will be rewarded," he said, "with wealth and property
should you succeed. With something less pleasant should you
fail."

"I shall not fail."

"How can you be sure? How can you even know you will find
him?"

"When you cannot?" Bochner was shrewd. "Or when you do,
you always seem to arrive too late? The answer is basically
simple; you hunt a man but I hunt a beast. You operate on the
basis of pure logic, but a man is not a logical creature and does
not follow a nice, neat, predictable path. Not a man with sense.
Not one who knows he is being hunted. Not one who is afraid.
Such things confuse the normal pattern. Watch such a man as I
have and you will see his instincts guide his decisions. A ship
arrivesтАФshall he take it or wait for the next? The same with a
raft, a cab, a caravan. The same with a hotel, a meal, a drink in a
tavern. The shape of a door can send quarry scuttling into
hiding. The whisper of a woman who, by chance, speaks his
name. The look of an official which, misunderstood, can lead to
flight. How can you predict exactly where he will go when he
doesn't even know himself? What he will do, when what he is
permitted to do depends on chance?"

He was over-simplifying and was wrong in his assessment of
the ability of the Cyclan, but Irae did not correct him. Neither
he, nor any cyber, wished to advertise their abilities to those who
had not hired their services. And the 'chance' to which Bochner
referred was not a matter of infinite variables, as he seemed to
think, but a limited set of paths determined by prevailing
factors. A man stranded on an island could only escape by sea or
by air. Without the means to fly, he was limited to the sea.
Without the means to construct or obtain a boat, he could only
swim. If unable to swim, he would be forced to wade the
shallows. Knowing the man, the circumstances, there was
nothing hard in predicting what he would do and where he
would go.

Irae said, "Do you know the Quillian Sector?"

"As much as any man can know it."

"Which is to say?"

"Parts well, other parts not so well, a little not at all. But
then," Bochner added, "no one knows themтАФthe worlds hidden